Commercial centers in an around San José, Costa Rica have a full agenda lined up with free events for kids and families to celebrate Halloween in a safe, comfortable environment. On Friday, October 27, from 2 - 6 p.m., Lincoln Plaza in Moravia, east of downtown San José, offers an afternoon of fun with inflatables, cotton candy, treats and face-painting, with a trick-or-treating session from 3 ...

The Limón Carnivals have been rescheduled and now will be celebrated from October 11th through the 22nd, the dates were moved due to the National Emergency that the country is facing as a result of Tropical Storm Nate, the original dates were October 6-15. “Even before the letter arrived from the Ministry of Public Security in which they informed us that the Police could not be present at the ...

Monday, October 9, the Embassy and Consular Section of the United States will be closed in honor of Columbus Day which is celebrated in the United States that day. In 1937 the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, proclaimed October 12 as a day of homage to the first European explorer in the Americas, Christopher Columbus. It was President Richard Nixon who declared the day a n...

For those that have companies or workers here in Costa Rica, this information is important, October 12th is a holiday in Costa Rica when the country celebrates “El Día de las Culturas”, Cultures Day also known as Columbus Day in the United States. This holiday, however, has certain particularities, for instance, when the 12th falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, as is the case thi...

Hindu Festival of Lights known as “Diwali” will take place October 15 at the Wyndham Herradura Hotel in Cariari, Heredia, Costa Rica. Diwali is celebrated every year and it signifies victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair. This activity has been celebrated in the country for the past eight years and it is organized by the Costa Rica- I...

Eight local governments have decided to ban the sale of liquor from Thursday evening until Friday evening, September 15, to try to curb the potential negative effects of drinking on the Independence Day holiday activities. Moravia (a northern San José district), Heredia Center, Palmares, Alajuela Center, Sarapiquí, Goicoechea (a northern San José district) ,and Alajuelita (a southern San José d...

This Friday, September 15, Costa Rica celebrates 196 years of independence. If you live in Costa Rica you are probably already familiar with many aspects of the country's history and traditions regarding this day, but in case you need a quick refreshing course here are some quick facts you should know about Costa Rica’s Independence and the road traveled to become an officially independent republi...

Das Oktober has become a very expected event in Costa Rica since the tradition began 5 years ago; every year the festival grows in attendance, last year reaching almost 14,000 visitors, and participants, while the quality of the production and organization continues to show a very high level. This year’s edition will take place at the Pedregal Event Center on Saturday, October 7 from noon thro...

Photo: Wyndham San Jose Hotel/Mother's day lunch For those of us lucky enough to still have our mother with us and if we have them right here in Costa Rica living with us, next Tuesday, August 15 we will be celebrating another Mother’s Day. All mothers are different and therefore it is difficult to make recommendations on gifts, some like working out, others have particular hobbies, some en...

This Sunday, July 30, the National Museum in San José will host the “Alma Guanacasteca” festival as part of the activities commemorating the annexation of the Guanacaste province, celebrated July 25th. The event starts at 10 a.m. and extends through 3 p.m., it includes traditional dances, music, a guided tour through the exhibit of Costa Rica’s History among other samples of the rich Guanacaste...

August 2 is a holiday in Costa Rica, it’s a day reserved to honor the country’s patron saint, the Vírgen de los Angeles or “La Negrita” as Costa Ricans refer to her. The tradition in the country for catholic faithful involves a pilgrimage, “La Romería”, to the church in Cartago that was built in honor of La Negrita, “La Basílica de Los Angeles”. Hundreds of thousands, some say more than a...

The Costa Rica International Festival of the Arts – FIA 2017 kicks off tomorrow Thursday, June 29th and will fill the capital city with different art, music and theater shows. The Municipality of San José has confirmed all international and national events, the majority of which will be held indoors in 14 different sites, among them the National Theater, the Dance Theater, Theater 1887 and the Me...

Diplomatic delegations from several embassies in Costa Rica have confirmed their participation in today’s LGBTI Diversity March which has as a slogan “Human Rights for Everyone”. The confirmed embassies include: USA, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Chile, France, UK, Netherlands, Israel, Mexico, Spain and EU as well as the UN System and its agencies. This is the eight edition of the Diversity Mar...

The LGBTI diversity march will take place June 25 in Costa Rica; this event has been taking place for 8 years and it’s a space to celebrate and promote the rights of the LGBTI community. Bands, floats, dancing, shows and other attractions are part of the march that starts at Paseo Colón and finishes in the Plaza de las Garantías Sociales in San José. The organization of the event has already...

These Saturday Parque de Diversiones will be the site of the Life in Color Festival, “an electronic music event that takes place in different countries around the world, this is the fourth time it makes a stop in Costa Rica. As in previous years the event will have musical performances by Costa Rican DJ’s and foreign artists featuring the likes of Nicky Romero from Holland recognized among the ...

May 14 is the established date for this year’s edition of La Luz Gastronomy Festival in Barrio Escalante which will extend from 10 a.m. through 8 p.m. This is the fifth time this even is organized and it is already one of the most expected gastronomic events in Costa Rica. Forty stands will offer different food options, design, art and culture just like in previous years, but this time there...

Ortega de Balsón is a small town in Santa Cruz de Guanacaste, it is famous in Costa Rica because they have a tradition that has been celebrated every year on Good Friday ( Easter) for at least 200 years called “la lagarteada”; this phrase cannot be properly translated, but the activity consists on a group of people jumping into a croc infested river  capturing a live crocodile, preferably the larg...

As we celebrate the Holy Week, we invite you to visit some of Costa Rica’s most beautiful churches, being for the most part a catholic country, you are sure to find a church in every community, but some are certainly worth visiting even if you are not a religious person, as their architecture makes them stand out. Basílica Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles: This is Costa Rica’s most popular chur...

You don't have to travel far this Saturday to experience cultures, food and celebrations from around the world. Tucked away right near downtown Santa Ana on the verdant campus of United World College Costa Rica or Colegio del Mundo Unido Costa Rica, the annual UWC Festival will have something for everyone to enjoy. From guitar and funk music, to food for sale, dances from all over the world,...

Holy Week or Semana Santa is a peak week to vacation in Costa Rica, public employees and schools are off all week, while Maundry Thursday and Good Friday are mandatory holidays so a lot of businesses remain closed for business from Thursday through Sunday; this year Holy Week starts on April 9th and therefore Costa Rica adds another mandatory Holiday on April 11th day in which this country celebra...

A special event for wine lovers will take place for the first time in Costa Rica, more specifically in Campo Lago, San Antonio de Belén, Heredia, May 6th and 7th. Showcasing a wide range of wine bottles,  the Wine World Festival will have wine tasting, special offers,  shows, family entertainment, food trucks, kids’ corner and daycare,  wine cocktails, cooking classes, and general information o...

March 17th through March 19th more than 150 artistic shows will take over San Jose, in the 13th edition of Transitarte Summer Festival. Transitarte is part of the initiatives of the San José Municipality to provide artistic and cultural events to the population and part of the efforts to recover the use of public spaces, it is also an option for foreign visitors to get to know the Costa Rican c...

After several years of work trying to recover the wetlands of Palo Verde National Park in Guanacaste, this park celebrates today the IV Bird Festival. This exotic bird sanctuary has been battling with the typha (typha dominguensis), an invasive plant that affects the wetlands, reducing the extension and depth of the wetlands' water mirrors, which are used by aquatic birds to feed and rest in th...

Saturday, March 11, 11 a.m., the first Street Food Festival in Costa Rica will bring you a wide choice of delicious culinary options. Twenty food trucks, among them Wiches, Garibaldi, Papata, La Ventanita Meraki, Delitruck and La Cebichería, will be present at this festival that will take place at the Kölbi Event Center in Parque Viva, La Guácima, Alajuela. Different flavors and styles hope ...

New York, Feb. 20 — Thousands of people took to the streets Monday in New York and other U.S. cities to protest against President Donald Trump and reject his policies on the one-month anniversary of his inauguration. The New York demonstration was staged in front of the luxury hotel bearing Trump's name on Columbus Circle and extended along a number of streets all the way to Central Park. It...

The beautiful community of Uvita will be the scenery of the 7th annual Envision festival, February 23rd through February 26th; an experience like no other, yoga, music, dance, education, meditation, sustainability, art and spirituality in connection with the incomparable nature of this beautiful country. What is the Envision Festival? It’s about envisioning a better world, learning about a b...

The event “Sundays free of smoke” promoted by the Municipality of San Jose and that were so successful in past years will resume this 2017 starting February 12 and all Sundays through April 9. In these events the objective is to motivate families to visit the capital city without having to worry about cars and the contamination caused by them, the activities take place in Paseo Colón which clos...

The International Festival of the Arts 2017 will be taking place June 29th through July 9th, 2017, and for this year’s edition the Artistic and Cultural Production Center, part of the Ministy of Culture and Youth has opened the period for reception of proposals for participation in the XV edition of the International Art Festival (FIA 17). The FIA is the biggest cultural and artistic even in Co...

For many Costa Ricans, especially young adults, missing the Palmares festivities is not an option. After welcoming a new year and after the Zapote fair this is the next big event in the calendar. The usually quiet city in Alajuela turns every January into the epicenter of fun and the synonym of party. The Palmares event has been taking place for 30 years now and it includes a horse parade, a...

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 24 -- Pope Francis on Christmas Eve encouraged Catholics to turn away from consumerism and embrace the "smallness" of Baby Jesus. During his homily at the annual Midnight Mass in a packed St. Peter's Square, Francis said the humble story of Jesus' birth in a manger remains a guiding principle of Catholicism. "The Gospel reveals a paradox: it speaks of the emperor, the gove...

If this is your first-time spending Christmas in Costa Rica you will certainly love the excellent weather conditions this time a year, downside to this season in Costa Rica, like in any other, is that traffic gets worse than usual in San Jose in the days leading to Christmas and after Christmas the beaches can get really crowded. Costa Ricans celebrate Christmas much like other countries in Ame...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rican 'corrida de toro', Flickr Commons Along with tamales, ronpope (spiced rum), and school vacations, December and January also bring typical bullfights or “corridas de toros” to many small towns across Costa Rica, and with them, divided opinions and strong feelings. A recent survey by the National University in Heredia, Costa Rica found that 46.4 percent of Costa...

If you didn’t have a chance to go to the “La Luz Escalante” Gastronomic Festival last weekend, don’t worry about it, you will get a chance to try some of the delicious dishes presented at the festival during the next four weekends of December. Barrio Escalante, located in the east side of San Jose, will become a gastronomic boulevard every weekend of this last month, offering different cuisine ...

The “Festival de La Luz” or (Parade of Light) in Costa Rica is already a tradition in Costa Rica and will take place December 17 in San Jose. But the Christmas activities are not exclusive to the capital city, and for the third year in a row, the neighbors of Quepos in Puntarenas will have their own Bright Lights Boat Parade. Around 15 to 20 boats will bring lights and fun to residents of Quepo...

By Wendy Anders A rendering of the Second Coming of Christ, source Facebook. U.S. computer programmer Nora Roth, has boldly claimed that “Jesus will come back to Earth and incite the rapture” at the end of December, reported aol.com this week. Her calculations are explained on her website, Mark of the Beast, where she asks the wild questions, "Are 6,000 years of sin almost over? Will Jes...

By Wendy Anders Photo posted on the Accidentes de CostaRica Facebook group page. As Costa Rica’s traffic police bolster their year-end patrols in an attempt to prevent the typical spike in traffic accidents and fatalities that accompany the holiday festivities, some hopeful data came in for November. With 20 traffic-related fatalities November 2016 had the lowest recent traffic mortality...

The Costa Rica International Film Festival returns for its 5th edition and is scheduled from December 8th to the 17th. A total of 58 feature films and 14 short films will be shown in five different theaters: Magaly Movie Theater, La Aduana Theater, Theater 1887, the Theater of Dance and the Amphitheater of the National Center of Culture. Entrance is free of charge for the 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. sho...

The fourth edition of the Gastronomic Festival “La Luz Escalante” will take place this Sunday, December 4, and will have the participation of 19 restaurants. Food, music and art, merge in this event which will offer a great variety of different dishes and gastronomic alternatives for the attending public in each of the participating restaurants, canopies and booths and food trucks . Barrio E...

Shops are bursting with toys, mince pies are on the menu and radios are blasting out Christmas tunes—so it's time for another festive favourite: lying to children. Millions of parents convince their kids Father Christmas is real—but this lie may be damaging, according to psychologist Christopher Boyle and mental health researcher Kathy McKay. They also suggest parents may not be motivated by...

December comes this year with a full agenda of entertainment in Costa Rica. The Municipality of San Jose, already confirmed the 21st edition of the now traditional Festival de la Luz (Parade of Light) which this year will take place Saturday, December 17 starting at 6 p.m. The Festival de la Luz will have the participation of 14 decorated floats, 15 bands and several cheer-leading groups, in 20...